Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/216

 172 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP. VIII. Caroases of horsea left above ground for want of hands to bm-y them. the resources of the regiment itself, he must try to make good the sliortcomings of a hampered department. Whether owing to this stress of habit, or caused by some misunderstanding, or by the paralysing effect of cold and privation, many regiments were slow, very slow, to appro- priate the warm clothing provided for them. Thus — to choose only two out of several like examples — there was a cavalry regiment which obtained an order for 108 blankets on the 2d of December, yet apparently did not fetch away any of them until the middle of January ; and an infantry regiment which had obtained an order for 400 blankets on the 2d of December, fetched none of them until the l7th, and then took only 300. Upon the whole, then, to sum up our state- ment, Lord Raglan's prompt measures for replac- ing the enormous losses occasioned by the wreck of the Prince proved so quickly effectual, that after the first week in December there was always at Balaclava a supply of warm clothing ; but on the other hand, it is equally true that at that very time, and from the causes already assigned, there were regiments engaged before Sebastopol which lay suffering acutely from the want of those very articles which lay in readi- ness for tliem at a distance of seven or eight miles.(^'^) If our soldiery were so hardl}^ overtasked as to be scarce able to give themselves the advan- tages of the food that they had, it may well be imagined that the task of keeping pure the